The Manzanar Fishing Club

[Fishfreak911]

At Fred Hall last year, Dana (RIP) made it a POINT that he introduce me to Cory. A nice guy, and a worthy cause. He has been working on this for years.

[briansII]

It sickens me. I will never visit manzanar nor any of the concentration camps of WWII. My soul can not take the inhumanity so called righteous people do to one another. You can think me insensitive and naive. My own family has numbers upon their forearms. I can't even make a cohesive idea at this moment. I am just sickened by our people and government at that time.

fflutterffly - If you ever get the chance, please try to visit Manzanar. The interpretive center there does a great job in telling the story.

Although visiting a concentration camp such as Manzanar can be disheartening, it can also be uplifting. The people there did triumph over adversity - they made the best of an unjust situation. Just how tough was it? Most of us will probably never know. My relatives who were interned never talked about it. My mother was a college student attending UC Berkeley when she was sent to the Poston Relocation Center - she, like many others, never returned to school. Last year she was given an honorary degree from the University of California - if she were still alive, she would have been so thrilled. Very few of the internees ever criticized the government for imprisoning them...after all they went through they were still proud to be Americans.

Yup.

briansII

[Rockstar Fisherman]

I wish I would've known about this back when I was doing my history report on the Pacific Theater War (WWII). I interviewed a close family friend to my parent's who was sent to Manzanar and would've loved to had asked her out of curiosity if she knew anything about this. Unfortunatley she passed away several years ago.

It's not one our good moments in history as a country. Let's hope we learned a lesson. I have been to Dachau, and thank God we did not go that far. I think about it every time I drive up the hwy.

Totally know what you mean Bill, especially after visiting Auschwitz in Poland last summer.

[Bernard]

....Manzanar can be disheartening, it can also be uplifting. The people there did triumph over adversity ......."

I agree big time. It is a totally fascinating place despite how one can also feel shame.

Seeing and visiting Manzanar definitely gives a slightly better flavor (for me at least) than, say, visiting Anne Frank's house not to mention a true WWII German "camp". I am afraid to visit one of those too. It may seem apples and oranges and perhaps it is but I guess what I am trying to say is that the Japanese at Manzanar really seemed to keep a chin up. That's what the emotional charge feels like when you see the museum. I forget the exact details but some of the sons even fought in the 42nd infantry. Talk about ironies. Anyway, being on the Owens Valley floor in winter with dust and wind blowing through the floorboards and losing my home certainly does not sound like a bed of roses. I can only speak via my distanced and much more comfortable life experience.

I was doing an Ansel Adams search recently and by pure coincidence ran into some images he took of Manzanar.
This is pretty stunning: http://www.shorpy.com/node/2620?size=_original. Crazy to think Ansel documented this.

B.

[johnnhoj]

As horrible as being interned was, let's not go overboard and refer to these places as "concentration camps". The concentration camps were on a totally different level than what the Japanese had to endure. Our country did not torture and murder these people. I don't believe anything like that would have ever happened. Yes the Japanese were treated unjustly and in no way am I condoning it, but I don't want to see history revised either.

[8NoFish]

As horrible as being interned was, let's not go overboard and refer to these places as "concentration camps". The concentration camps were on a totally different level than what the Japanese had to endure. Our country did not torture and murder these people. I don't believe anything like that would have ever happened. Yes the Japanese were treated unjustly and in no way am I condoning it, but I don't want to see history revised either.

I don't want to get into an argument about this, and no offense meant, johnhoj. but by definition....

concentration camp
NOUN:
1. A camp where civilians, enemy aliens, political prisoners, and sometimes prisoners of war are detained and confined, typically under harsh conditions.
2. A place or situation characterized by extremely harsh conditions.

A concentration camp is a large detention centre created for political opponents, aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. The term refers to situations where the internees are persons selected for their conformance to broad criteria without judicial process, rather than having been judged as individuals. Camps for prisoners of war are usually considered separately from this category, although informally (and in some other languages) they may also be called concentration camps.

The Random House Dictionary defines the term "concentration camp" as: "a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc.", and, the American Heritage Dictionary defines it as: "A camp where civilians, enemy aliens, political prisoners, and sometimes prisoners of war are detained and confined, typically under harsh conditions."

You're right, the United States did not murder or torture in their camps. The * used their concentration camps for forced labor and the extermination of thousands of people. Both, by definition, were concentration camps - the difference was that the * used theirs for far greater evil.

[8NoFish]

....Manzanar can be disheartening, it can also be uplifting. The people there did triumph over adversity ......."

I agree big time. It is a totally fascinating place despite how one can also feel shame.

Seeing and visiting Manzanar definitely gives a slightly better flavor (for me at least) than, say, visiting Anne Frank's house not to mention a true WWII German "camp". I am afraid to visit one of those too. It may seem apples and oranges and perhaps it is but I guess what I am trying to say is that the Japanese at Manzanar really seemed to keep a chin up. That's what the emotional charge feels like when you see the museum. I forget the exact details but some of the sons even fought in the 42nd infantry. Talk about ironies. Anyway, being on the Owens Valley floor in winter with dust and wind blowing through the floorboards and losing my home certainly does not sound like a bed of roses. I can only speak via my distanced and much more comfortable life experience.

I was doing an Ansel Adams search recently and by pure coincidence ran into some images he took of Manzanar.
This is pretty stunning: http://www.shorpy.com/node/2620?size=_original. Crazy to think Ansel documented this.

B.

There are at least two books that have Ansel Adams' Manzanar photos:
Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal Japanese Americans [Hardcover]
Ansel Adams (Author)
Manzanar [Paperback]
John Armor

[johnnhoj]

8NoFish :
No I'm not looking for an argument either. So looks like the true meaning of concentrawtion camps would also include Manzanar, but some of the other posts seemed like they wanted to lump both of them into the same category. I obviously didn't like that and that's all that I wanted to point out. It's so easy to put down this great country of ours and I just wanted to get my two cents in. I have been to Manzanar and it is a very humbling place. It makes you open your eyes to what can happen when people become afraid for their lives and how we need to learn from our own history.